


trails of fire (they lead me to you)

by TheFledglingDM



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Action & Romance, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Promare (2019) Fusion, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Background Relationships, Blood and Injury, Burnish Kurapika, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, GNC Kalluto, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Medic Leorio, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Multiple, Swearing, Trans Alluka Zoldyck, Trans Kurapika, Trans Nanika, mentions of food insecurity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:49:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29725791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFledglingDM/pseuds/TheFledglingDM
Summary: No one knew who the first Burnish was.It was the strangest thing. One day, life was normal: boring, bland, routine. Adults got up and went to work. Children went to school. Planes flew, trains skirted over their tracks, cars burned gas over the hundreds of thousands of miles of road crisscrossing the world. Babies were born; grandparents died. The sun got in peoples’ eyes, and the wind blew in their faces, and a bird pooped on one very unlucky office worker’s shoulder. Packages were delivered. Day melted into afternoon, afternoon faded into evening, and lavender twilight became the velvet-blue midnight sky.The next day, everything changed._or: a leopika promare au
Relationships: Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck, Kurapika/Leorio Paladiknight
Comments: 23
Kudos: 47





	1. prologue - all you have is your fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so very much for clicking on this!!!! hello!!!! i have wanted to write this _promare_ au for almost a YEAR now and i am SO excited to dive in!!!! i don't anticipate this story being a beat-for-beat retell of _promare,_ so i hope to keep people on their toes or at the very least engaged. thank you for joining me in this journey!!!
> 
> this story title is taken from ["inferno," by hiroyuki sawano,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSts_WOEE-s) the theme for _promare_. if you haven't seen it, please watch it!!!! it is SO good!
> 
> this chapter title is taken from ["arsonist's lullaby," by hozier.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoQvbDROucQ)
> 
> as always, please enjoy!!

No one knew who the first Burnish was.

It was the strangest thing. One day, life was normal: boring, bland, routine. Adults got up and went to work. Children went to school. Planes flew, trains skirted over their tracks, cars burned gas over the hundreds of thousands of miles of road crisscrossing the world. Babies were born; grandparents died. The sun got in peoples’ eyes, and the wind blew in their faces, and a bird pooped on one very unlucky office worker’s shoulder. Packages were delivered. Day melted into afternoon, afternoon faded into evening, and lavender twilight became the velvet-blue midnight sky.

The next day, everything changed.

Who was the first? Was it the businessman trapped in gridlocked, bumper-to-bumper traffic, who heard _that_ _goddamn radio commercial one more time?_ Was it the underpaid barista, screamed at for the fourth time in their six-hour shift for forgetting that it was _no whip?_ Or was it the office worker passed over for the promotion for the third time? Was it the PhD candidate who received the results of their dissertation and learned their doctorate was not awarded that round? Was it the doctor who lost a young patient to a completely preventable illness, had they only been properly vaccinated? Was it the child on the playground, shoved into gravel or mulch or wood chips as the older, bigger kids sprinted to the swings?

Maybe it was none of them. Maybe it was all of them, all at once. Maybe it started in a chain reaction, like a gas line blowing windows out one by one. 

But it did not matter in the end. Because by sunset on the day now known as Burnover Thursday, a date scorched into infamy, the world was forever changed.

That was the day people the world over all abruptly manifested – _powers_. The people affected seemed chosen at random by fate’s capricious hand. Some were killed instantly in the blast, incinerated in a moment of spontaneous human combustion. Some of those explosions were so large and violent that they also killed everyone around them. Entire offices and classrooms were wiped out. A subway derailed when the conductor was lost to the blaze. In one of the most infamous cases, a bridge collapsed in the middle of morning rush hour. Thousands of lives were lost that day.

However, the vast majority of manifestations were neither loud, nor violent, nor explosive. Children and adults alike instead amazed their friends and baffled their families and colleagues with displays of sparks flying from their fingers. Like firecrackers, they scorched clothes, carpet, and grass alike, stinging in the moment but leaving little lasting damage. Like firecrackers, their eyes changed color as the reaction kicked off. The color of their eyes ran the gamut of the fire spectrum: glossy orange, bright yellow, fierce blue, fire-engine red. Occasionally, someone’s flames were the color of burning metals: green, blue, pink, purple.

Days melted into weeks as world leaders crossed the globe to work out _what the hell to do_ about this new segment of the population that could create wildfires with only their hands. Experts estimated nearly thirty percent of the global population was affected by this freak transformation, with less than one percent of that group capable of generating firestorms and explosions large enough to level buildings with naught but their hands. On paper, the numbers were grim; in reality, the realization that 21,000,000 (twenty-one _million_ people) could potentially raze the world to the ground if they wanted to was downright _terrifying_.

Eventually, they decided the world was better safe than sorry when it came to handling the threat of the _Burnish_ , as this new group chose to call themselves. Governments demanded that Burnish citizens register to identify themselves. They spent billions of dollars putting fire departments and water hydrants on every corner, like the Burnish were bombs waiting to go off. Some went so far as to mandate therapy or some other kind of treatment, as if the Burnish were diseased, or were simply biding their time to hurt people, or had _chosen_ this.

Rumors abound that the Burnish were possessed by vengeful fire spirits, that they were pyromaniacs susceptible to their own base urges to set the world aflame. That they were devious and deceptive, because unless they were actively using their flames, their eyes looked as normal as everyone else’s. Over the years, hundreds of schemes promised to “heal” the Burnish of their flames and “ameliorate their pyromania.”

In time, the Burnish were relegated to second-class citizenship status as jobs, schools, and housing complexes refused to keep Burnish employees, citing safety and liability reasons. With the governments implementing these policies in place, fear of the Burnish increased, and Burnish people and their families were shunned from society at the first sign of one’s flames manifesting. Some were attacked or imprisoned simply for the threat or fear that they _might_ be Burnish.

So really, it should not have been a surprise when a faction of righteously _pissed-off_ Burnish banded together to demand better. Workplace and discrimination protections; actual enforcement of anti-hate crime laws. Their protests were cancelled or shut down, citing public safety concerns; their policy proposals all died in committee. 

So who was surprised, really, when that group changed over the years, growing harsher, demanding more (demanding _exactly_ what they deserved as people, as human beings)? If the world was going to deny their intrinsic humanity and leave them out to rot, why keep playing their game? Why not be _exactly_ who the world thought they were? They struck terror into the hearts of government leaders and citizens alike with their coordinated attacks. The papers detailed their disruptive natures and their cumulative _billions_ in property damage over the years. The government shared wanted posters of black-armored, faceless terrorists (or vigilantes – it all depended on who you asked) on TV and street corners. Anti-Burnish sentiment was at an all-time high, as was Burnish pride and conflict. For the past thirty years, the world was a loaded gun, a minefield, a powder keg ready to explode.

They called themselves the Mad Burnish. And their demands were simple: treat the Burnish with the dignity they were owed, or they would burn the rest of the world to ash.

  



	2. i keep on running towards the fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just another day at burning rescue might just upend leorio's entire world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter title comes from ["the fire," by bishop briggs.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-4SFdxq6oc)
> 
> please enjoy!

Twenty-four-hour shifts were the _worst_.

Well, that was an overstatement. Leorio liked his job. Loved it, really. He loved everything about it: he could help people; he was getting experience in emergency medical care while he saved up for med school; he could keep an eye on his energetic, stubborn roommate/friend/unofficial-adoptive younger brother, Gon.

Four o’clock on a nondescript Thursday afternoon found Leorio minding his own business in the kitchen area, sitting on one of the barstools at their massive kitchen island. His textbooks and notes covered more than half of the enormous surface, one hand supporting his chin as he read, the other holding his pencil as he copied a diagram from the page. The rest of the room was a loud bustle of activity: Knuckle and Gon engaging in a series of increasingly ridiculous bets in their two-man arm-wrestling tournament; Pyon giggling with Gel and Cluck as she tallied odds and set up a betting pool; Gel reading her gratuitous smut novel with a straight face; Cluck casually folding the polycule’s laundry, which she decided to do because it had been an achingly slow day otherwise; Knov, looking up with a sour expression on his face as he asked them to _please_ not jinx it, he was still missing half of his hair from their last big call. Over it all came Morel’s casual shout to generally _knock it off with the noise, these reports won’t write themselves._

The family at Burning Rescue chorused _yes, captain_ in unison. Leorio snuffed out a grin with his hand and returned to his reading. He barely made it a page when the alarms blared, announcing a call.

_“What did I tell you,”_ Knov wailed loudly over the screaming klaxons.

Leorio was up and moving before he had even thought about it. This was a deeply-ingrained habit now, the organized chaos of prepping for a call. Of preparing to run headfirst into danger.

Or, well – not exactly for Leorio. As Gon, Knuckle, Pyon, and Cluck all suited up in their fireproof gear, and Knov and Morel readied the mechs and the trucks, Leorio and Gel hopped into their ambulance. He didn’t have a suit to tug on or a mech to pilot. No, Leorio only had a navy-blue Burning Rescue uniform unbuttoned just past regulations, because the third button had popped off in the wash and Leorio kept forgetting to replace it. Gel tucked her hair up into a sleek, shiny bun at the top of her head, sending him a smirk. Leorio returned the gesture, asking: “What’ve we got?”

Gel turned on the radio, tuning in to their dispatch frequency. Leorio listened to the dispatcher, anticipating a house fire, a car accident, a medical emergency.

_“Three-alarm skyscraper fire, multiple Houses called to the scene at 2900 High Hill Drive. Responders are advised that affected offices are medical research facilities; beware additional reactions, fumes, and additional explosions,”_ dispatch relayed.

Gel was busy driving, so Leorio took up the attached walkie-talkie to reply. He knew the rest of his team could hear him through their headsets as he said, “This is Burning Rescue Elite, Aid Car four-oh-three, en route. Any additional information available? Injuries, fire origin, structure stability?”

Gel sent Leorio a distracted, appreciative nod. _This_ was where Leorio shone: he did not run headlong into danger like Gon or Knuckle, nor could he make amazing mech designs like Pyon and Knov, nor could he handle the crowds the way Gel and Cluck could, nor could he control major calls the way Morel did. But Leorio knew how to ask the right questions, how to work out logistics and fast-track solutions to problems. He looked at a fire like a surgery: slice in with as little fanfare as possible, remove what they needed, and heal what they could.

Leorio was not callous in his planning or calculations. He did not believe in acceptable casualties. No, he thought that every call could be perfect, and he refused to give up when he could save just _one more person._

Leorio might not always be the first person in, but he was always the last one out.

Dispatch rattled off their answer, the voice vaguely familiar. Saccho? Saiyu? Whoever it was, he detailed that the alarms originated on the seventy-third floor of the eighty-story medical research facility operated by Governor Pariston Hill. So far, there were no known casualties, and the worst injuries were from smoke inhalation or minor injuries from the mass exodus of people rushing out of the building. However, those numbers were definitely low, because people were still working their way out of the building from the upper floors, and there were several large clusters of scientists unaccounted for.

_“Finally, be advised. Burnish signals and flames were detected on-scene,”_ dispatch relayed as Gel maneuvered their ambulance past the police blockade, sirens screeching. Leorio heard the general grumbles about this additional information: for all of their plans and protocols, any emergency that featured Burnish fire was guaranteed to go off-script.

Leorio unbuckled his seat belt and hopped out of the ambulance once it slowed to a stop, his crash bag slung over his shoulder. He craned his neck to take in the scene.

Morel stood sentinel in the eye of the storm, directing their fellow first responders into position and handling the scene. Burning Rescue Elite, as the first on the scene and the most experienced and best trained for exactly these types of situations, assumed control of the call. Leorio could hear Gon and Knuckle already making their way into the building via the comms piece in his ear, searching for survivors among the wreckage and reinforcing ceilings as they rescued survivors. Knov and Pyon coordinated exits from the building, using their ultra-specialized, heat-seeking technology to search for survivors and directing Gon and Knuckle to them. Cluck did the same from above in her chopper, raining water down onto the fire and using her propellers to dispel the smoke that made the middle of the day dark as twilight.

And the _flames_ … Leorio swallowed.

The upper levels of the office building were soaking wet from the anti-Burnish pumps running endlessly, dumping thousands of gallons of water per second on every inch of the building. But they did little to quench the flames. That was one point to indicate these were Burnish flames: they were hardier than regular fires, strangely resistant to the water and other fire-suppressants dumped on them. As he watched, Leorio saw the too-high, too-bright, too-red flares of Burnish fire on the seventy-third and -fourth levels of the building. He was not sure how else to describe it, but there was always something so unnerving about Burnish fires. They run rapidly through buildings, setting aflame things that were not supposed to be flammable and eating their way through things that _did_ burn with alarming speed.

They always seemed so… _hungry_. So _alive_.

“Why would the Burnish attack a place like this?” Leorio asked into his headpiece, following Gel into the triage area.

_“Don’t worry about that now,”_ Knov immediately advised. _“We just need to focus on the call. Anything else is just politics.”_

_“Hear, hear,”_ Cluck agreed from on high.

_“I dunno, if I’m gonna be fighting Burnish fires, I want to know why,”_ Knuckle grunted.

_“All I see up here are empty offices and labs,”_ Gon observed. _“It looks like the sixty-eighth floor is clear, Knuckle, we can head upstairs. Morel, alert anyone coming in after us – there are lots of ‘do not enter’ and ‘caution: radioactive’ signs. We’re looking at some Class B, C, and D materials here!”_

“Gon, sound less excited, kiddo,” Leorio mumbled as he snapped on his gloves. “Gonna give this old man a heart attack.”

Strange, he mused as he approached his first patient (a fall injury: lightly sprained wrist, scraped-up palms. Easy enough to treat). Class B materials were things like gasoline, alcohols, or oil; Class C materials were essentially electronics; Class D materials were flammable metals like magnesium or lithium. All things that would make sense to have at a research facility. But nothing that would spark the Mad Burnish’s interest. No, they were more interested in political demonstrations, or thefts of food and supplies, or attacks against power production centers. Leorio could not think of a time the Mad Burnish actually attacked a hospital. Or any densely-populated place.

“What are they researching here?” Leorio asked.

_“That’s above our pay grade,”_ Morel barked gruffly through the comms. He sounded annoyed, but not with the team. If he was irritated with them, he certainly would have already said so. Much more likely he had reached the same conclusion as Leorio and was annoyed that some bigwig researcher or government official was refusing to share any information with him. _“Just keep your heads down, get in, save people, and get out. Our first priority is reducing casualties.”_

“Yes, captain,” Leorio echoed with the others.

_“And Leorio, don’t call yourself an old man,”_ Morel added. _“Because I am an old man.”_

Leorio bit his lip to stop himself from laughing. “Yes, captain.”

_“We’re getting a call from the seventy-eighth floor,”_ Pyon suddenly piped up. _“An emergency alert has gone up, like a Code Blue alarm.”_

“A Code Blue alarm in a research facility?” Leorio asked.

_“Must be human subject research,”_ Pyon said. Leorio pictured her fingers flying over the keys, pulling up everything there was to know about this facility. _“Yeah, it looks like cancer research and clinical trials. It seems there are about two dozen people holed up in an emergency bunker on that floor.”_

“An emergency bunker on the top of a building?” Leorio repeated. “Guys, am I the only one getting a weird feeling about this?”

_“Yeah,”_ Knuckle said.

_“Uh-huh,”_ Pyon, Cluck, and Gel chorused.

_“Don’t look for zebras, Doctor Paladiknight,”_ Knov reminded him, half-tease and half-reminder not to overthink things. The phrase simply meant, _don’t look for a more complicated answer when there was a perfectly straightforward one in front of you._ The research facility was all above-board; the Code Blue alerts were for their completely legal human subjects research; they had a safety bunker in case of fire, as so many large buildings did in case of Burnish fires; the Burnish were attacking because they were, according to all official reports, terrorists.

Still, Leorio had to force himself not to bristle in irritation.

Tellingly, interestingly, Gon was silent, too.

_“Zebras or fires or whatever, we have a medical emergency on the upper floors,”_ Morel said. _“Leorio, get suited up and respond. Pyon, send him up the fast way. Gon, Knuckle, finish your extraction and provide backup. Gel, you’re in charge of triage. I’m sending medics from House 89 your way.”_

Leorio met Gel’s green eyes. After a short nod, Leorio stripped off his stethoscope and practically sprinted to their fire truck, diving in and tugging on his own suit. It was much smaller than the mechs Gon and Knuckle wore; this was sleeker, smaller, though it shared the same white color with orange accents along the arms, legs, torso, and helmet. It was also climate-controlled and carried its own power source, but while Knuckle and Gon’s mechs were designed for building stabilization and fire extinguishing, Leorio’s custom suit was for literal on-the-ground medical care. The fingers featured scalpels, cauterizing tools, antiseptic sprays, thermometers, epinephrine, albuterol; the palms had defibrillators; there were more hidden compartments and contraptions for bandages and splints along the torso and legs.

“Ready, Leo?” Pyon asked, smiling up at him and knocking her knuckles against his chest plate. “This is the suit’s first big test-run.”

“You know it,” Leorio agreed. 

“Leo,” Pyon called. He turned around and just barely caught the thing she lobbed at him. Leorio eyed the device, his stomach sinking. A white gun, steel cold to the touch, with the stylized _PH_ logo from Pariston Hill’s company. A freeze gun.

“Pyon,” Leorio protested weakly. He carefully held the gun back out to her. “I’m a _healer_. I can’t take this.”

“Department policy states that anyone going into a blaze with suspected Burnish interference is to carry freeze-protection tech,” Pyon said seriously. “And we both see those flames. We _know_ there are Mad Burnish up there. But we don’t know where, or how many, or what they want. And if they find you, there’s no guarantee Gon or Knuckle we make it to you in time to protect you.” Pyon gently pushed the freeze gun back towards him. _“Or_ your patients.”

Leorio swallowed thickly. He understood the risks of his job, Mad Burnish and all. He knew they were dangerous and could roast him to bones in a flick of the wrist. And yet –

_I don’t want this. I can’t shoot this. I’m a healer._

But policy was policy. Leorio swallowed thickly and holstered the gun at his side. It made him feel off-balance and wrong. “Okay.”

Pyon sent him a bracing smile. He replied with a grin and stepped into the shoot that would, for lack of a better term, shunt him to the top of the building. He closed his eyes in the small, claustrophobic space, locking his muscles in preparation of being shot nearly eight hundred feet into the air.

Pyon whooped from outside the door. “Three, two, one, _lift-off!”_

It was like a clown being shot out of a canon in a circus (an apt metaphor if there was one). The launchpad shuddered beneath his feet, and Leorio’s stomach dropped down somewhere to his ankles as he was propelled hundreds of feet into the air. Adrenaline started to rush all over again, the world slowing to a standstill. Leorio fired the suit’s rappelling anchor into the top of the building. It sent a jolt through the line and into his shoulder when it found purchase in the roof, and Leorio allowed his momentum to swing him forward through a broken window. He activated the fire-suppressant foam in the suit’s arm, reducing the flames to a manageable containment as he let go of the rappel line and tucked and rolled, coming to a stop on the broken tile floor of an empty hallway.

Leorio clambered to his feet, casting his gaze about for a sign of where exactly he’d landed. A nearby door had a placard that read _7386_.

“I’m on the seventy-third floor,” Leorio said into the earpiece. His voice echoed in his helmet, strangely tinny and loud. “Heading further in to find the bunker.”

_“Copy that,”_ Cluck said. _“I can follow your movements through the floor and direct you to the bunker.”_

From Leorio’s spot, the halls branched off in three directions: the right, ending in an emergency staircase; the left, revealing a long line of offices; and straight ahead. On instinct, Leorio went straight, away from the windows. “Tell me where to go, Cluck.”

The floor was larger than Leorio anticipated, and he was grateful for Cluck’s assistance as she steered him through the office floor. He passed by open-plan office spaces with cubicles and labs with large signs that read _**DO NOT ENTER – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.**_

_This lab conducts human subjects research,_ Leorio reminded himself as he forced his gaze away and kept moving.

Cluck’s directions led him to a massive steel door. Leorio heard terrified, hushed voices on the other side. He knocked on the door hard, the sound of metal on metal echoing down the hallway.  


“Burning Rescue Elite, open up!”

A moment’s pause. The door opened and a mousy scientist poked their head out, blinking owlishly. “Oh, thank _God_ , we’ve been waiting here since the alarms went off, we were so scared –”

“And we’re going to get you out safely,” Leorio assured her. He felt bad for interrupting, but he had a Code Blue to attend to. “But I received an alert that someone here was seriously injured. A Code Blue. Where are they? Is anyone unaccounted for?”

The scientist squinted up at him, confused. “A… Code Blue? None of us tripped an alarm.” She looked back over her shoulder, counting heads again. “And all of us are here.”

Leorio frowned back. “Then who–?”

And then there was the explosion.

It was so large it rattled the floor, making Leorio stumble to the ground. His head snapped against the back of his helmet, and even the padding didn’t stop him from losing his breath or feeling like his skulls had cracked like an eggshell. The group of scientists screamed; dimly, Leorio could hear them stumbling over themselves and each other in their haste to escape. There was a ringing in his ears as he screwed his face in pain, trying to regain his bearings. Slowly he lifted himself onto one elbow, muscles protesting the movement and the weight of the suit. Blearily, he blinked his eyes open. The hall was full of smoke, but he could see a group of figures moving through it, dark and indistinct. They peeled off in the opposite direction of the emergency staircase.

“Wait,” Leorio started, his voice weak and raspy. His head filled with thoughts of weakened wall structures, of fire and flashovers and smoke, of _no acceptable casualties._ He coughed to clear his throat, stumbling to his feet and running half-blindly through the smoke. _“Wait!”_

He could barely feel the heat or lick of fire as he sprinted through the smoke cloud, feet kicking aside stray rubble. He caught his hand on a pipe to anchor himself as he rounded a corner so as to not lose any momentum. “Wait, you’re going the wrong way! I’m with Burning Rescue Elite, and…”

And his words trailed off. Because Leorio was emphatically _not_ looking at a harried, panicked group of stressed-out, white-coated scientists.

No, this group was as different as they could possibly be from the scientists Gon and Knuckle were removing from the building. With the trained gaze of an emergency responder, taking in as much of the scene as he could to sort out the _who_ and _what_ , he stared at this motley group.

There were six of them, Leorio noticed first. Four of them wore armor, sleek and black and shiny, all pointed edges and glowing colored accents. Their faces were obscured, so they were only distinguishable by their armor’s metallic gleam – green, purple, gold, red, like they were doing a damn _Power Rangers_ reboot. Except the sleek black managed to actually look badass and downright _terrifying_ , glowing as it did in the eye-searingly _scarlet_ Burnish fire that flickered behind them.

In the middle of this group were two additional people, sans armor, dressed all in black – jeans, fire-retardant turtleneck and leather jackets, ski masks, goggles, oxygen masks, steel-toed boots. Instead of a weapon created from the flames, each held a gun that looked very much like a Phantom Troupe special in their gloved hands. Except, of course, Leorio knew _damn_ well these were not the Phantom Troupe.

And finally, sequestered in the middle of the group, tucked up small and tightly against the green-armored figure’s chest, was a seventh, still body. They were so pale Leorio could not discern where their hospital gown ended and their skin began. Their hands crossed limply in their lap, their head tucked down by a green-gloved hand braced possessively – no, _protectively_ – against their bob of dull black hair. Tubes and wires dangled from the slender body’s frame, severed with all the finesse and brusqueness of a hatchet.

“Mad Burnish,” Leorio breathed.

The Mad Burnish were all frozen, staring at him as if they were as taken aback at his entrance as he was of theirs. It might have been comedic were Leorio not facing an international terrorist group armed with nothing more than a freeze gun and his own wits.

The Mad Burnish exchanged glances and irritable hand gestures that either doubled as sign language or were accompanying loud, swearing discussions on their own comms wavelength. Which, again, might have been funny, except Leorio positive he was about to be roasted alive.

The Mad Burnish in the center – the one bedecked in black and red, the one who held themselves with the poise of a leader and irritation of an elder sibling – waved a hand irritably in the direction of three of the figures. Just behind the Mad Burnish, the wall of crimson-and-gold fire parted like the sea. One of the figures dressed all in black sent a middle finger at the leader, and then the group of four dove through the fire. The Mad Burnish with the green accents followed after, morphing their armor to create a bubble of protection around the child cradled in their arms. With a final, almost elegant twist of their wrist, the leader in red closed the gap in the fire after them, effectively securing the other group’s escape by sealing them outside the fire.

And damning themselves, sealing themselves inside the burning building.

Leorio finally connected his brain to his mouth. “Hey! That’s kidnapping!”

The Mad Burnish all exchanged looks with one another. Leorio wondered why they were still there and, moreover, why he was still alive. The leader in red tilted their head as if asking, _and what of it?_

“That’s illegal!” Leorio shouted, because he was really good in medical emergencies, but hostage negotiations were way above his pay grade. Maybe Morel was right.

The Burnish in gold made an odd movement, shoulders and head suddenly arching back. The one in purple made a similar motion, as well, accompanied by a hand half-raising to their hidden face. It took Leorio a moment to realize they were _laughing_ at him behind their helmets. Well, that was rude.

The Mad Burnish leader in red eyed him considerately, head still tilted. Then, very slowly and carefully, they lifted a hand and sent Leorio a conscientious middle finger.

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Leorio muttered, and he unholstered his freeze gun. He aimed it squarely at the chest of the Mad Burnish leader in the middle.

Instantly, the other two shifted into motion. The gold-armored Mad Burnish manifested spiked gauntlets; the purple-armored one generated a longspear, black volcanic glass tapering into a wickedly sharp purple point. It was _super_ badass, actually, but again: Leorio was sure he was about to die.

However, the center figure in red suddenly raised a hand, indicating his guards to stop. His head tilted to the side, considering.

“You won’t shoot us.”

It was not a question. His voice echoed in the helmet. 

“What makes you say that?” Leorio bluffed.

“For starters, you haven’t removed the safety.” The helmet did not show the leader’s face at all. Its only features were stylized, nightmarish facial proportions and crimson, burning eyes. Somehow, Leorio still knew that the Mad Burnish leader, internationally renowned and wanted terrorist, was _smiling_ at him. Leorio also knew it was not a nice expression. “And your form is abysmal. Feet not planted, elbows locked… you’ve never shot that gun in your life.”

He noted this with faint amusement. But that lick of warmth was gone when the Mad Burnish leader said, “So, no. You won’t shoot us, firefighter.”

Ah. Bluff failed. Not that Leorio really thought he would accomplish much with that gambit. With a sigh, Leorio safely holstered the freeze gun back in place. “Two for three. I haven’t shot that gun before. Never in the field at another person, at least. And I certainly didn’t want to.” His lips twitched into a small smile. “But I’m not a firefighter.”

“On a morning jog, then?” the Mad Burnish leader asked, tone laced with scorn.

“A medic,” Leorio corrected. “We received a medical alert, and they sent me in.” He thought about the kidnapped child he’d just watched the Mad Burnish run off with. “Would you know anything about that?”

The Mad Burnish leader _laughed_. It echoed in the helmet, strangely loud in the hallway. The scarlet flames around them flickered and danced like they were laughing, too, spiking higher as they were fed by a sudden surge of _rage_.

“What I know would fill _books,”_ he snarled. “What I know would _burn your world to the ground.”_

Leorio considered that. He thought about the flames around them: behind the Mad Burnish, eating at papers and melting equipment alike, setting off small explosions as various chemicals superheated. He thought about his clear, quiet path from the window and emergency exit stairs from the bunker.

He thought about locked labs and an emaciated child tucked securely in a Mad Burnish’s arms.

“So then why haven’t you hurt me yet?” Leorio asked.

The Mad Burnish boss stiffened. And then, for the second time that day, Leorio’s world exploded around him.

The floor shuddered upward, broken tile and bits of pipe and steel and plaster erupting like a geyser. The Mad Burnish leapt out of the way: the gold and purple pair jumping back, and the red one jumping forward, towards Leorio. The leader’s shoulder collided with Leorio’s sternum, knocking him roughly back, and once again his head cracked painfully against the inside of his helmet. He choked, the air leaving his lungs in a rush.

Over the leader’s shoulder Leorio could see white-suited mech operators jumping through the hole in the floor. They fired their heavy-duty Freeze Force guns in the direction of the purple and gold Mad Burnish. There was a small explosion, a sound like shattering glass, twin shuddering, pained cries. Leorio could vaguely see the outlines of two people on the floor. They looked unnervingly small and vulnerable with their armor broken into pieces around them.

The Mad Burnish leader cursed under his breath. Then he rolled agilely off of Leorio, making a break for the emergency stairs.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Leorio hissed under his breath. He scrambled to his feet, his suit’s metal feet scraping against the ruined floor. The halls were dimmer now, hazy with black smoke. It was difficult to see the leader’s form as he retreated, and he was _fast_. He was already halfway to the windows.

Leorio drew the freeze gun. Aimed it at the leader’s back. Removed the safety, planted his feet, unlocked his elbows. Inhaled. Exhaled. His breaths rattled.

_You won’t shoot us._

_What I know would fill books._

_Why haven’t you hurt me yet?_

Leorio grit his teeth. He was not strong enough to fire his gun. Not even at a monster. Not even at the leader of the Mad Burnish.

But nor could he let him go.

Leorio adjusted the angle. Fired the gun at the mandatory fire extinguisher attached to the wall. The icy bullet interacting with the compressed carbon dioxide made the damn thing explode just as the Mad Burnish leader passed it. The burst sent him reeling, staggering into the opposite wall. There was a sickening _crack_.

_Oh, shit, I fucking killed him,_ Leorio thought. He did not think; he only _moved_ , vaulting over a pile of debris and sprinting to the figure leaning heavily on the wall.

“Oh, shit, fuck, I hadn’t thought that would happen – are you okay?” Leorio asked, reaching for the Mad Burnish leader’s shoulder. Which was a huge mistake.

Despite his obvious pain, the leader snatched Leorio’s wrist, bending it at an uncomfortable-but-not-quite-painful pressure point and pinning it to the wall above Leorio’s own head. He stilled at the feel of searing heat just under his chin as the leader created a knife from his flames, scarlet like blood and viciously jagged. Leorio swallowed thickly, going still and staring into the leader’s face through a broken sliver of his helmet.

“Do not. _Fucking_. Touch me.”

Leorio’s first thought was that he was _young_ – definitely in his twenties, like Leorio, possibly even younger than he was. With his flames activated, his eyes were _scarlet_ , flashing dangerously in bone-chilling wrath. This glimpse of his face – pale, blond, _pretty_ – juxtaposed with the grotesque black-and-red of his helmet was – jarring. Frightening. Leorio felt himself reflexively recoil from the sight. The leader’s lip curled in something like a sneer, something like pride, something like disappointment.

“Scared now, I see.”

“More startled,” Leorio admitted. He glanced down, though his own visor and helmet prevented him from seeing how close the knife was to his neck. “Why are you doing this?”

“I don’t like to be touched.”

“Duly noted,” Leorio said, instead of, _yeah, I worked that out._ “I meant…”

He jerked his head down the ruined hallway. “Blowing up buildings. Hurting people. Kidnapping kids. What’s your end goal here?”

The Mad Burnish leader’s lip curled from a sneer to a snarl. “Buildings are just _things_. And Burnish don’t kill people.”

“The scientists hunkered down in their panic room might disagree,” Leorio pointed out.

“It is not my fault if people’s fear of the Burnish makes them lose all common sense,” the leader hissed. He had an accent, Leorio noted. It made his words reminiscent of an angry, rushing rapid. “Who ever heard of locking themselves in a room in a burning building?”

Leorio could think of a few reasons why people might hide themselves away, but before he could explain basic fire safety to a man with a knife to his throat, the Mad Burnish leader continued. “And we are not kidnapping. We are _rescuing_. Look around. Use your _eyes_ , medic.”

But Leorio could not look around. He could not even move. He could not see anything except the livid man in front of him. The fierce, powerful man with deep purple shadows under exhaustion-sunken eyes.

Leorio studied him and the emotions he saw in his firestorm eyes: rage, exasperation, exhaustion, _fear_. And Leorio knew that, for as confused as he was, personally, he believed that the Mad Burnish leader believed _he_ was rescuing that child.

_What I know would burn your world to the ground._ A chill raced down Leorio’s spine.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Leorio said, low enough he almost did not hear himself above the flames around them. “What is your end goal, boss?”

The Mad Burnish boss went still. Leorio saw surprise flash across his face. For a moment, the flames surrounding them dipped low. Then they flared again, to the ceiling, and the Mad Burnish leader actually _growled_ in suppressed rage. His knife pressed a searing line of heat against Leorio’s neckline.

“My end goals are none of your business.” They were almost forehead-to-forehead when the leader of the Mad Burnish hissed, eyes sparking like tinder, “And my name is _Kurapika.”_

Leorio stared, frozen. Kurapika. He mouthed the name, his lips carefully shaping the syllables. _Kurapika_.

Suddenly there was another small explosion. Cold flashed past Leorio, hitting Kurapika squarely in the shoulder and knocking him off of him. Another shot bound Kurapika’s wrists together. A third locked his legs. Kurapika overbalanced and fell onto his side, armor cracking and breaking around him like a shell. Leorio winced as he watched Kurapika hit his head hard against the debris-strewn ground, unable to catch himself.

Leorio whipped around to glare at the incoming Freeze Force agent. The man removed his helmet and tossed his hair like this was a L’Oréal commercial, pink hair perfect despite the helmet and face clear of soot. He smiled down at Kurapika, twirling his gun around his finger.

He clicked his tongue. “The leader of the Mad Burnish. I thought you’d be harder to take down.”

“If he was so easy to beat, I wonder why you needed three shots,” Leorio said acridly. The Freeze Force agent sent him a saccharine smirk.

“I’ll take it from here, firefighter,” he said sweetly.

Leorio did not move, refusing to be cowed. “I’m a medic.”

The agent’s frigid smile widened. “That’s _wonderful_. I don’t care. Leave. That’s an order.”

Freeze Force agents had seniority over anyone in Burning Rescue. Gritting his teeth, Leorio was forced to turn on his heel and head for the stairs. He waited to make a facial expression until he was in the stairwell, where he grimaced. He toggled a button to turn on his comms.

“Leorio, checking in.”

He winced when the rest of the Freeze Force crew yelped in his ear all at once. Gon’s yelps and Pyon’s exultations and Knuckle’s effusive weeping and Knov’s subtle breath of relief and Gel’s warm welcome. Morel used his captain’s frequency to cut over their overlapping voices, barking:

_“And just where the hell have you been, Paladiknight?”_

Leorio groaned internally, jogging down the now-empty stairwell, intermittently hopping over railings to make the trek down seventy stories go faster. He said, “False alarm on the Code Blue, it seems. Got held up by some Mad Burnish.”

_“Oh, my God,”_ Pyon gasped, _“Mad Burnish? We saw Freeze Force drop in, but didn’t make the connection – are you okay? Did they hurt you?”_

Leorio frowned, jumping down a flight of stairs. He thought of a smoky hallway, empty and quiet, flames on the wrong side – blocking his way forward, implicitly demanding he instead turn back. He thought of Kurapika’s scarlet eyes inches from his, a knife to his neck.

“No,” Leorio said. “No, they didn’t.”

_“Hmph,”_ Morel grunted. _“Good. In that case, keep getting your ass down here. Triage is packed with low-level injuries and Freeze Force is grandstanding instead of helping.”_

Morel left _as usual_ unspoken but heavily implied. Leorio’s lips twitched. “Copy, Captain.”

He made his way down the stairwell, finally emerging out the skyscraper’s front entrance some ten minutes later. The scene was controlled chaos as he walked back into the daylight. Cluck’s helicopter still hovered in the sky, directing Gon and Knuckle toward the last of the survivors trapped inside. Knov and Morel directed the scene, and Leorio knew his orders without needing his captain to bark them. He jogged over to Pyon’s truck, changing out of the mech suit and toweling off some of the sweat over his forehead.

“Leorio, how was the – oh, _shit!”_ She gasped. Immediately she leapt to her feet, stomping over to the suit where it stood empty. Pyon was cheerful and brightly friendly by nature, but despite her five-three stature and her short bob of auburn hair tied back in a pink bow, she was _terrifying_ as she examined her suit. Honey-brown eyes took in the ugly black scorch mark marring the once-pristine white paint job.

Pyon whirled around on him. _“What the fuck did you do?”_

“Nothing!” Leorio cried, stumbling back into the empty storage space that usually housed Knuckle’s suit. “I just – the Mad Burnish, he and I, uh, got into it a bit –”

“You said you weren’t hurt!”

“I’m _not!”_

_“Then what do you call this?”_ Pyon screeched, pointing at her suit. Fortunately, both Gel and Cluck picked that moment to pipe in: 

_“Pyon, darling –”_

_“Pyon, doll –”_

_“Oh, you go –”_

_“No, you can –”_

_“Get on with it,”_ Morel gritted out. Leorio heard the overwhelming crush of reporters demanding to hear his official story leaking through the airwaves.

_“Pyon, can you wait to kick Leorio’s ass until after this call?”_ Gel asked smoothly. _“I need him in triage.”_

“Fine,” Pyon huffed. She glared up at Leorio, pointing one manicured nail into his chest. Its shade of pink matched her hair ribbon. “I’ll find you later.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Leorio said, and he ran back towards the triage and fire area. It was altogether much safer.

There were a great deal more injuries now. Leorio found Gel standing in the main triage area under a tent, reviewing their supplies and telling a paramedic what to fetch them when he returned to his nearby station. Leorio waited for her to finish, sanitizing his hands and gloving up. He put another few pairs of gloves in his pocket, as well. Judging by the number of people around them, he suspected it might be some time before he could rest and resupply.

“So you broke Pyon’s suit,” Gel said by way of greeting. She jerked her head toward the rest of the injured area.

“I did not,” Leorio countered hotly. “If anything, it _did its job_ protecting me from fire.”

“Of course,” Gel agreed smoothly. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay and you’re here now. All of our moderate-to-severe injuries have been shipped out by now, but that does still leave us with the bulk of the non-emergent injuries.”

“What’ve we got?” Leorio asked.

“Twisted and sprained ankles, bumps and bruises, some crushed or injured fingers and wrists, the odd nosebleed,” Gel rattled off. “We’ve got medics from a few other houses here, but they’re not you.”

“Flatterer,” Leorio teased. Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned around and saw the perimeter Freeze Force had set up around their captured Mad Burnish. There were two trucks: two of the Mad Burnish were seated at the outer edge of one, and the leader in the other.

“What the hell?” he muttered. Gel looked up, followed his gaze. She frowned.

“Freeze Force taking their victory lap,” She said darkly. “They’ve caught the leaders of Mad Burnish. It’s good publicity to show that off to the world.”

Publicity, indeed. There was a massive crowd of reporters surrounding the Freeze Force vans, straining at the tape they’d set up around them, lobbying for a good spot at the podium they were already setting up. It looked like Freeze Force, and Pariston Hill by extension, were going to do their press conference right here, right now.

Leorio eyed the mottled bruises already showing on the Mad Burnish leaders’ bodies. His lip curled.

“I’ll be back,” he said, and he scooped up his discarded crash bag.

“Oh, brother,” Gel murmured as he made a beeline for the Freeze Force media circus.

“Excuse me, excuse me, paramedic coming through, excuse me,” Leorio said. He was not above using his height, bulk, or elbows to make a way to the front of the crowd.

The Freeze Force guard keeping the horde at bay was the same pink-haired man from before. He smiled widely when he saw Leorio, thin lips baring white teeth.

“Ah, the _medic,”_ he greeted smoothly. Golden eyes flicked leisurely over Leorio’s frame. “Just as _heroic_ out of the suit, I see.”

Leorio only barely refrained from rolling his eyes. “I’m here for them.”

He jerked his chin in the Mad Burnish’s direction. The guard’s smile widened past what Leorio was sure were normal human proportions.

_“Are_ you?” He purred. “On what authority?”

Leorio drew himself to his full height. Irritably, he recited, “Burning Rescue Policy K-1640 states that even in cases where Freeze Force takes control of a call, paramedics retain control of medical services. I am here to provide medical care. Get out of my way.” 

The man’s brows rose and fell sharply. Rather than annoyed, he seemed delighted to hear Leorio recite department policy at him. “Beauty _and_ brains. We’ll have fun, medic.” He snagged the _DO NOT CROSS_ tape and lifted it so Leorio could step over. The agent flourished a hand with theatric grace. “The scene is yours.”

“Thanks,” Leorio bit out instead of, _fuck off._ He ignored the man’s smirk and the reporters’ renewed shouts as he approached the truck that featured the two Mad Burnish lieutenants.

They stiffened as Leorio grew closer, pressing their arms together protectively. One man was large, his round face sallow and dark hair greasy and flopping over his eyes. He had deep auburn eyes that were vaguely unfocused, like he could not completely see Leorio. The man next to him was much smaller, slender, his dark skin made darker by long days in the sun. overlong black hair was tired into a messy tail at the nape of his neck. Their clothes were well-care-for but aged, tattered, and dusty.

Leorio took careful stock of their injuries. The taller man had a black eye, his left cheek swollen and discolored. The shorter one had a bloody nose and burst lip and seemed to be favoring his right ankle. Leorio turned to the shorter man first.

“My name is Leorio,” he said patiently. “I’m here to help. Can I take a look at that nose?”

“Fuck off,” the taller man barked. His glare centered on the general direction of Leorio’s face, but it was just a little off. Leorio turned his attention to him, instead.

“Are you having trouble seeing?” Leorio asked. The man barked out a sharp laugh.

“Only my whole life.”

“He has corrective glasses in his pocket,” the smaller man at his side murmured. He eyed Leorio with keen, bright blue eyes. Leorio remembered a story that ran a few years ago about a Mad Burnish raid on a medical manufacturing plant that dealt in, among other things, specialized corrective lenses. “It’s not a fix-all, but they help.”

_“Altair,”_ the taller man hissed, betrayed. Altair gently bumped his shoulder against his.

“He just wants to help,” Altair said. “I’ve got a good feeling about him. Trust me, Pairo.”

For some reason, Altair’s note of confidence seemed to soften Pairo’s bearing. Though he still looked _extremely_ distrustful, his shoulders loosened just a jot. It was progress, Leorio supposed.

“Inner left pocket,” Pairo grumbled. “Go on, get them.”

Leorio nodded. He carefully telegraphed his movements, slipping his hand into the jacket’s inner pocket and removing thick-framed black glasses with lenses nearly as thick as Leorio’s pinky. Gently, he slipped the glasses onto Pairo’s face. Normally, he would have wanted to tend to the black eye and swollen cheek, but he needed these two to trust him enough to even touch them, first.

Pairo blinked, his eyes focusing on Leorio’s face. He prompted, “Better?”

“Better,” Pairo agreed. He nudged at Altair. “You next.”

Leorio took his time with the two. He tried to be as careful as he could, dabbing away the blood on Altair’s face and testing his nose (good news – it was not broken). He wrapped his ankle before moving on to Pairo. He crushed an ice pack in his hands to activate the chemical reaction and, after some finagling, they were able to work around their bindings – the Freeze Force guards refused point-blank to take them off – and had Pairo brace his injured cheek against Altair’s shoulder.

“Okay, that’s pretty much all I can do here,” Leorio said. “Do you need anything else?”

“Yeah, actually,” Pairo said. He eyed Leorio appraisingly with his good eye. “Take care of my brother.”

“Kurapika?” Leorio asked. Pairo and Altair made near-identical shocked expressions.

A tiny, amused smile danced across Pairo’s lips like someone had flicked on a lighter. “Yes.”

“Of course,” Leorio said. He nodded to the two because he was not sure how else to leave them. He could not exactly say, _take care of that, be well, follow up with your primary care physician._

He wished he could. He wanted to. But Leorio knew the road ahead for these three was anything but warm.

Leorio shucked off his used gloves and holstered his bag over his shoulder. He turned to approach Kurapika and found the Mad Burnish leader already glaring at him like he was trying to set him aflame with his gaze alone.

Undeterred, Leorio walked towards him, eyeing the man for injuries.

As Leorio predicted, Kurapika looked like he was a year or two younger than he. Kurapika was also a head shorter, his already slim frame too skinny from a lifetime on the lam. His blond hair was tied up out of his face in a messy bun, though their recent fight left blond strands and his bangs flopping over his sweaty forehead. His eyes looked huge in his gaunt face. Now that he was not starting fires with only his hands, his irises were a dusky ash-gray, framed by long lashes. For someone who kicked Leorio around like he was a ragdoll, his features were surprisingly fine, with high cheekbones and a pointy nose and chapped, cherry-red lips. They matched the red gemstone that dangled from his ear on a short, delicate silver chain. He wore heavy, steel-toed boots, slim-fitting, thick jeans; a shirt under a worn leather jacket. Everything was black save for the scarf he wore around his neck, its deep scarlet identical to his gemstone earring and flames and eyes.

Before Leorio could say anything, Kurapika snapped at him, “Fuck off. Don’t come any closer.”

Obediently, Leorio stopped short. Kurapika’s eyes narrowed, like he was looking for a trick or a trap. Leorio only looked back at him, their standoff lingering. There was a gash over Kurapika’s temple, his forehead cutting over his temple and meeting his hairline. The scalp wound bled heavily, trailing over Kurapika’s profile, his jaw, in a thin stream down his neck. It looked like it hurt. Finally, he said:

“Leorio.”

Kurapika frowned, confused.

He elaborated, “It’s my name.”

“Oh.” Kurapika looked briefly taken aback before he said, “I did not ask.”

Leorio huffed out a surprised laugh. “I know.” Kurapika did not say anything, so Leorio observed, “That wound looks painful.”

“I have had worse,” Kurapika instantly replied dismissively. “And normally I _could_ heal myself, but…” He held up his Freeze Force-issued cuffs, explaining, “The cold inhibits our abilities. Which means it also inhibits our healing.”

“I’m sorry,” Leorio said. Kurapika’s lip curled.

“I neither want nor need your pity.”

“Of course not,” Leorio agreed. “I don’t know your life. I’m not here to hurt you or pass judgement or collect information. I really do just want to help.”

Kurapika blinked. For a moment, his disaffected, perpetually angry mien dropped, and he only looked surprised. Somehow, the expression hurt more than anything he could have said to him.

“Why?”

Well. That – that hurt, too.

Leorio said patiently, “Because I’m a paramedic. And you’re hurt. So I want to help. It’s my entire job, really.” Kurapika’s expression faltered again, and Leorio pressed on, “How about this? Let me just want to check you for a concussion. I don’t even need to touch you.”

_“Fine,”_ Kurapika bit out. “If it will make you leave faster.”

“You can always say no,” Leorio said. He had not yet moved. “It’d be against my medical recommendation, but you can. You have that right.”

Kurapika snorted derisively. _“Rights,_ he says.”

Leorio did not reply, and Kurapika sighed heavily. He winced faintly, like the motion hurt. “I do not care. Fine. Come here.”

Leorio bit back a smile, pleased with himself. Kurapika glared at him like he knew exactly what Leorio was thinking.

“How are you feeling?” Leorio asked. “Tired?”

“All the time.”

“Nauseous?”

“No.”

“Headache?”

“I do now.”

Leorio sent him a glare. Kurapika’s lips twitched into a vindictive smile.

“This will be easier for _both_ of us if you take this seriously and answer honestly,” he warned. “Now. Are you dizzy?”

“No.” Kurapika rolled his eyes. Then he _winced_ , the liar.

“Hey,” Leorio said. He took another step closer to Kurapika. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to see the way his shoulders stiffened. No one else could overheard them as he told Kurapika, “I’m serious. Let me patch up that lac, and I’ll be out of your hair forever.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” Kurapika’s lips twitched again at his own joke. Then he nodded shortly. “Very well. The head wound. Be quick.”

Leorio nodded and closed the rest of the space between them, entering Kurapika’s personal space. He smelled like smoke and ash. Kurapika held still as Leorio gloved up and carefully washed the blood out of his hair, wiped it away from his skin. Leorio murmured what he was going to every step of the way. Kurapika never replied, sitting stone-still and stoic.

“This might sting,” Leorio warned him, sponging his alcohol-soaked antiseptic pad across his hairline. Kurapika did not so much as twitch, though his jaw clenched briefly.

“And now the bandages,” Leorio said. He removed three butterfly band-aids from his pack and carefully lay them against Kurapika’s temple and forehead, closing the laceration the best he could. Next he took a square of gauze and taped it over the bandages, keeping the wound clean and covered.

“Okay,” Leorio said. “I _know_ this might be hard, but _please_ keep that clean, dry, and covered. I have some extra bandages, gauze, and tape here for you to change your bandages. Can I slip them in your pocket?”

Kurapika blinked at him, surprised silent again. He nodded, though he still looked immensely suspicious about the entire thing. Leorio slipped the supplies into a side pocket of his jacket. Kurapika followed every hand movement, every minute facial expression, every _breath_ Leorio took with the eyes of a hawk.

Finally, Leorio met Kurapika’s gaze again. He was frowning up at Leorio like he had no idea what to make of him, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it (he seemed to be leaning towards _not pleased,_ though). His permanent frown was back.

Strangely, Leorio’s eyes decided that this was the moment to observe the array of freckles scattered over Kurapika’s nose.

_Cute,_ he thought before his higher brain processes kicked in and reminded him, _wanted terrorist._

“Can I check your eyes?” Leorio asked. “I want to see if your pupils are dilating evenly.”

“If you try to shine a flashlight into my eyes,” Kurapika said flatly, “I will shatter your nose with my own forehead.”

Leorio snorted out a startled laugh, uncowed. “And get yourself shot into an ice casket by Freeze Force on live TV? I don’t buy it for a second.”

“If that’s what it takes,” Kurapika said stonily. He glared at the Freeze Force agents surrounding them.

This struck Leorio as a rather odd thing to say. He tilted his head, studying Kurapika, considering.

The clear getaway routes. The delayed conversation in the hallway. The fight. 

_Why haven’t you hurt me yet?_

The getaway party of four. The angry, annoyed gesture to _go._

The child.

_And we are not kidnapping. We are rescuing. Look around. Use your eyes, medic._

Leorio’s lips parted as he realized.

“Because you’re exactly where you want to be,” Leorio said slowly. “Because the longer you’re here, with everyone watching _you…”_

Kurapika’s dark eyes blew wide. He looked startled, horrified, _afraid_. 

Leorio stepped closer, pressing, “Who –”

Kurapika kicked him squarely in the chest.

Leorio flew back, not expecting the sudden blow. The force sent him careening backwards, his arms windmilling as he tried to recover his balance. Instead of falling to the ground in front of cameras from three dozen different news stations, his back collided heavily with something large and metal. Blinking, Leorio peered up at the Freeze Force agent. He had not so much caught Leorio as stood like a brick wall for him to crash into, halting his momentum. This was a new agent, tall and pale, with oddly vacant eyes set in an expressionless face and long, lustrous dark hair.

He did not say anything, but his companion did.

“Whoa, there, careful, firefighter!” He cried. Leorio gaped, completely thrown off when Governor Pariston Hill himself caught his arm and heaved him back to his feet. The governor was dressed in a tan, pinstriped suit that probably cost more than Leorio’s annual rent (cumulative), and his blond hair was as perfectly coiffed as usual. He beamed down at Leorio with a wide smile that contrasted sharply with his cheerless, calculating dark eyes. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Leorio said. “And I’m not a –”

“We were just coming over to ask a few questions!” Governor Hill interrupted. He made no indication he’d even heard Leorio speaking. “Agent Morrow over there told us that you were first on the scene up there with these Mad Burnish!”

“I… guess I was,” Leorio said. He glanced between the nameless Freeze Force member and Governor Hill. Was it normal for the Governor _himself_ to appear at the scene of a Mad Burnish attack? This was only a medical research facility, not something important to Yorknew’s infrastructure, security, or culture. True, they had captured the leader of Mad Burnish and his lieutenants. But would that really necessitate a press conference _right here, right now?_

“What did you see?” Governor Hill asked. “The full story, if you please! It’s for the press conference, you know! I want to reassure the people of Yorknew that this Burnish safety threat has finally been vanquished with the most accurate information I can gather!”

“Sure,” Leorio said. He licked his suddenly-dry lips. “We received a Code Blue that there was a medical emergency on the seventy-third floor. I ran into the Mad Burnish.”

“These three specifically?” Governor Hill asked. He was still smiling that glowing, empty smile. “And what about the Code Blue?”

He loomed over Leorio as much as he could for a man several inches shorter than he was. Leorio swallowed thickly.

_This isn’t right,_ he thought. _Something is not right here._

“It was a false alarm,” Leorio heard himself say. Heard himself _lie_. To the _governor_. “A sensor failed in the heat, I think.”

“I see.” Pariston nodded. He asked, “And, just to be very clear – exactly _how many_ Burnish did you see?”

_He knows you’re lying,_ a paranoid voice in his head screeched. _He knows you’re lying, he’s going to throw you in jail and throw away the key and you’ll be kicked out of Burnish Rescue and you’ll never go to medical school –_

_Hang on,_ the part of him that always took over in an emergency interrupted. _If he knows there were more than these three, then why wouldn’t he say so? Why would he ask that?_

_Because he’s still looking for them. Because he doesn’t want anyone to know about the child._

A petite, paper-white child hanging limply from the arms of a rescuer the governor wanted the entire city to fear and loathe.

“Just these three,” Leorio confirmed. He felt Kurapika’s shocked gaze burning between his shoulder blades.

Governor Hill’s smile widened. “Alright then! That’s… well… excellent! And you held your own against _three_ Mad Burnish?” He waggled a finger up at Leorio like he was a child. “I think a commendation is in order! Maybe even a Civilian Medal of Valor!”

“Oh. That’s… very generous to offer,” Leorio said, not sure of what else to say. Kurapika snorted loudly from behind him, diverting the duo’s attention from a very uncomfortable Leorio to himself. Governor Hill turned his cold eyes to Kurapika. Leorio felt a sudden urge to stand between the two.

“You are dismissed, firefighter,” Governor Hill told him. He did not look away from the Mad Burnish leader. “Thank you for all you’ve done today. We’ll be in touch.”

Leorio looked helplessly at Kurapika. It felt wrong to leave him, even if he was a wanted criminal. He could not stifle the voice in the back of his head screaming that something was _so very not right_ about all this.

But with the governor’s dismissal heavy in the air, there was nothing Leorio could do. He met Kurapika’s dark eyes one more time. Kurapika said nothing in farewell. He just watched him depart silently.

Later that day, Burning Rescue gathered together in the main room to watch Governor Hill’s press conference. He talked a lot about safety and Freeze Force and beginning a new chapter in Yorknew City history. He mentioned Leorio’s “bravery” confronting the Mad Burnish threat. He talked about how no one would ever need to fear “Burnish insurrection” again, because their leader would be dealt with swiftly and appropriately.

Leorio thought of Kurapika’s angry snarl, his gray-and-crimson eyes, his accent, his freckles, and something in his stomach _twisted_.

Governor Pariston did not mention the missing and kidnapped child. This, too, left Leorio’s stomach in such knots he could barely eat their crew dinner.

That voice was back again, ringing like a siren, repeating, _something is wrong, something is wrong, something is very, very wrong._

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! if you like, feel free to leave comments/kudos! if not, no worries!!! thank you for stopping by!! 💖💖💖
> 
> as always, feel free to hmu on my [tumblr](https://thefledglingdm.tumblr.com/) blog or my new [twitter!](https://twitter.com/DmFledgling)


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